Not Meeting the Plan

On Sunday, I started the P90X program. From my last post, my schedule for Sunday-Tuesday was going to be:

Sunday AM: Chest and Back
Sunday PM: Ab Ripper X

I completed these workouts back-to-back, since I put it off until late afternoon. The Chest and Back workout was about 50 minutes of pull-ups followed by push ups followed by pull-ups, and on and on. I used a chair to assist me for the pull ups and was on my knees for the push ups. This workout was tough, but I figured that gives me something to work toward.

The Ab Ripper X was different. I have tried so many ab workouts on dvd that you would be shocked. While some of them are tougher than others, I have NEVER before P90X come across one where I couldn't complete all of the reps. This 16 minutes was beyond tough. I love it! It gives me a goal to work toward.

Monday AM: Run (yeah, that didn't happen. I was sore and tired)
Monday PM: Plyometrics

The Plyometrics workout was an hour of jumping. Jumping lunges, jumping squats, bounding, etc etc. I thoroughly enjoyed this dvd although it was go go go from beginning to end.

Tuesday AM: Shoulders and Arms
Tuesday PM: Ab Ripper X

Are you kidding me? I couldn't even straighten my arms all the way when I first woke up, they are so sore, and now I have to do another arm workout?? Yeah, I didn't get up and do it this morning. I will do the workouts tonight, back to back.

For tomorrow, I need to get up and run in the morning, and I have Yoga X scheduled for the evening. I'm hoping and praying that the yoga is relaxing, since it's 90 minutes long! I have to run at least a couple of times this week, since I'm now planning a 5K race on Saturday morning.

Please, somebody tell me this will get easier? Oh, yeah, I know it will. I just can't believe that I've let myself get so far out of shape that a little weightlifting has made me this sore. Just wait, 90 days from now, I'm gonna have my body back.

Reality setting in

It's quite fitting that Carly posted about Time Management today. I have been seriously thinking about this for the past couple of days.

Based on hearing about it from another blogger, Kelly and watching the infomercial 2 or 3 times, I bought the P90X program back in January. It has been collecting dust ever since as I was marathon training. Now, my marathon is behind me, and my workplace is in the midst of a "Health and Wellness challenge" based on lowering body fat % and waist measurement that my colleague and I are in to win. This seems like the perfect time to break out the P90X dvds.

OK, so now that I have planned to start it, I should check out the schedule for it and figure out how to work it into my running plan. Oh, and don't forget that my daughter will still want to go to the gym on occasion, completely in addition to P90x and running. And, (yes, I'm starting a sentence with "and") I've started on my MBA program, so I have homework every week that also takes a large chunk of time. Am I going to give this up until my schedule can get easier? Um, no way. I'm going to suffer through it. That's what I do. It will get easier, I'm just gonna have to cut most television from my life.

So, this is going to require an hour each morning, and anywhere from 16 minutes to an hour in the evenings. My first week will look something like this:

Sunday AM: Chest and Back

Sunday PM: Ab Ripper X (16 min)

Monday AM: Run

Monday PM: Plyometrics

Tuesday AM: Shoulders and Arms

Tuesday PM: Ab Ripper X

Wednesday AM: Run

Wednesday PM: Yoga X

Thursday AM: Legs and Back

Thursday PM: Ab Ripper X

Friday AM: Run

Friday PM: Kenpo X

Saturday AM: Run

Saturday PM: Rest or X Stretch

After the first week, I will either feel great and continue or I will turn into a puddle of jello and give up.

I have just a few pictures of the crew from our trip to Boston:

Barbie and me on the tram to the airport in STL

Me just before the BAA 5K

5K Finisher:

Barbie and Me, and Shanna is sitting on the statue's lap:

Shanna and me waiting for the subway

And, here we are with a couple of others from our running club

Boston Recap

Here are a few of the stories from my recent trip to Boston, pictures coming soon!

Pre- Marathon trip bullet points:

• Saturday afternoon- left STL, ate Chili's at the airport. Note: Chili's at the airport is NOT Chili's.
• Saturday evening- Arrived at hotel around 9pm, saw two members of our local running club. Small world. We tried to go to the hot tub, but we waited too late. The hot tub closed at 11pm.
• Sunday morning- 5K Race Day. We slept a little later than planned, but we managed to make it to the race start in plenty of time. I went into the tent where they were handing out the packets and picked everything up. Barbie held all of our stuff while Shanna and I ran the race (Shanna ran as a bandit, she just wanted to stretch her legs a bit). It was 45 degrees and sunny- great weather for a 5K. I finished in 29:16. My biggest problem was that I didn't line up until the last minute and just started in the back. I was weaving around people the entire race and ran part of the time on the sidewalk. The scenery was amazing, and it was an unbelievable feeling finishing at the Marathon finish line. Barbie, meanwhile had gotten to see Joan Benoit Samuelson speak before the race started and snapped some photos. All of the 5K finishers received a medal (score!) and some pretty nice goodies afterward.
• Sunday afternoon - Boston Marathon Expo. What can I say? There was SO MUCH to see. We walked the expo, picking up freebies and shopping ALL DAY. We had pasta with roasted veggies for lunch at the expo. We caught up with a few of the members of the local running club for a picture for the newsletter in the afternoon.
• Sunday evening- went to the hotel restaurant and found that they didn't really have any pasta. The hostess suggested a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in East Boston, near the airport since we didn't want to travel far. We ate dinner there and it was DELICIOUS. We had a very hearty pasta dinner. We had a hell of a time getting there, since the cab driver had no clue how to get there. $17 later, he got NO TIP!
• Back to the hotel and Shanna went down to the gym and lifted weights. Yes at 9pm, the night before the marathon. Ah well!

Marathon Race Day!

• Woke up at O'dark thirty for the girls to get ready to catch the shuttle to the start in Hopkinton. No family or friends were allowed on the shuttle, so I didn't even get out of my pajamas. I helped them get everything together and get out the door, then I caught a couple more hours of shut-eye and had a leisurely morning.
• Race start was 10:30am for the 2nd wave. I watched the start on tv, then I started riding the subway. I caught up with Barbie at the 17 mile point (Shanna was too fast, I missed her!).
• I caught Shanna at the 25 mile mark and snapped a picture. She looked very determined.
• Shanna finished in 3:34. She BQ'ed again, at Boston!
• I talked to Shanna on the phone as I started trying to make my way through the crowd to the finish line. Let me just take a moment to say how incredible the crowds were for this race. Barbie said later that the roar of the crowd was overwhelming for the last 8-10 miles of the race, and she got choked up several times on the course thinking about it all.
• Before I could get to Shanna, I got a call from the medical tent- she was a little dehydrated but OK.
• Barbie finished in 3:55. She BQ'ed again, at Boston too! Awesome!
• I got in touch with Barbie and we met up near the buses where the runners picked up their bags from before the race.
• Barbie and I then asked a police officer how to get to the medical tent. The streets of Boston make NO SENSE! We got turned around a couple of times and found the medical tent about 2 miles later. Oh, great news, she's OK but she's in Medical Tent "B", this is Medical Tent "A". UGH! About another mile later, we finally found her! At that point, we just wanted to get back to the hotel.

Monday Evening:

• HOT TUB!! Don't even say it. I just read an article on the plane on the way to Boston that said that ice baths were not necessary for anybody except elite runners. I used a hot tub after my marathon, and I was feeling fine by the next day.
• We ate dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. We ran into yet another runner from our local running club. What a small world!

Tuesday:

• Due to a snafu on our first night (the hotel put us in a room with a king sized bed instead of 2 doubles, so the three of us became veeerrrry well acquainted), we got a free breakfast that we used on Tuesday. They had a huge spread, and we all ate our fill.
• We went into Boston and did some sight seeing. I wish we had another day, one day wasn't nearly enough!
• We ate lunch at the Union Oyster House, the oldest restaurant in the country. Yum!
• Our flight was delayed, due to the weather, so we would have had some extra time anyhow. With the extra time, Barbie and I drank a couple of $8 glasses of wine in the airport bar.
• I got home at midnight. My Tito dog sure missed me! The kids are already texting me today to make sure I buy the concert tickets they are wanting. Yeah, I guess they missed me too. They missed my credit cards anyway.

Boston Bound

OK, so we're not really leaving until tomorrow afternoon... but I have homework to finish, laundry to do, packing to do (yuck!), and I haven't eaten dinner yet. I don't imagine I'll be around tomorrow to post!

My two friends Barbie and Shanna will be running the marathon. We are hoping for cool weather, no rain or wind!

Alas, I am a slowpoke, but I'll be running the BAA 5k on Sunday morning, with the same finish line as the marathon! One day, I will run the Boston Marathon. It may have to wait until I'm 45 and the cutoff is 4 hours. If I lost the extra weight and did the speedwork, I could run a 4 hour marathon, but I can't see me running a 3:45!

I'll post all of the details when we get back on Wednesday.

My goal- nada. I'll probably run tomorrow morning for a bit and then just take it easy and enjoy the sights on the 5k.

Barbie's goal- another sub-4 hour marathon.

Shanna's goal- 3:15. Her track coach believes this is what she can achieve, so she is setting her sights high. She recently ran a 39 minute 10K, and she has been running crazy miles so there is no telling what this girl can do!

Illinois Marathon Pictures

I was able to get some pictures that Barbie took while we were in Champaign for the Marathon...

Here is a picture of the three of us with Bart Yasso at the Expo. This one was taken with a cell phone, so it's a little fuzzy.


Here is one of Barbie and me getting ready to leave our hotel room.

Here I am entering the stadium. Feeling great!

Here I am coming around the bend. I'm the little bright blue speck to the left of the goal post, with my arms in the air... they had just announced my name. Look how far I got ahead of the runner behind me!


And, finally, some pictures with the girls after my finish! Notice how I can't seem to wipe the smile off my face. I felt so fantastic!

Illinois Marathon Finisher

I have finished my third marathon. Maybe I won't wait another 3 years to finish my fourth.



The weekend was a lot of fun. We left for Champaign around noon on Friday. This was the Inaugural Year for the Illinois Marathon, so we weren't sure what to expect. When we got into town, we went straight to the University to pick up our race packets. There wasn't much of a goodie bag, but the race shirts were very nice. They were a long sleeve, technical fabric shirt. The full marathon shirts were half-zip. The only problem was that I ordered a Large, I tend to order Large because I have long arms. The shirts were clearly in Mens sizing because my shirt is like a tent on me. They wouldn't exchange it until all of the runners had picked up their packets. I didn't bother checking back, since the expo was going to be going until 9pm.



The expo was pretty small, in comparison to others, but it was spread out so you weren't all crowded in like at most race expos. Bart Yasso and Dick Beardsley were at the Expo. Since the race was small, they were pretty much available for chatting, which we did. We got a picture with Bart Yasso. I won't get the pictures until Monday when Barbie can e-mail them to me. I'll post pictures later.



We went back to the Hotel and ate dinner there. We split some potato skins, and I had a giant plate of fettucine alfredo. Yum! We then went to our room and started checking the weather. I had planned to wear shorts and long sleeves, expecting it to be around 40-50 degrees. Wrong! It was windy and colder. I didn't pack my cold-weather running gear, but I had bought an Illinois Marathon jacket and was wearing some comfy nylon lounge pants on Friday. I had NO plans to run in those, as I had never run in them before. We decided to put our chips on our shoes and found that there were NO zip-ties in the envelope. UGH! So, we rigged them onto our shoes with safety pins, fully expecting the volunteers to have a struggle with them the next day.



Race day morning, turn the TV back on to check the weather. It is 34 degrees and WINDY. Oh no!! After much debate, I decided to run in the lounge pants and my new jacket. We left the hotel in just barely enough time to park, make one last trip to the restroom (indoor restrooms at the start, yay!), and get lined up. The race started and we were off! My first mile was too fast (9:42/mile). I decided I needed to slow it down! My goal for this race was just to finish under 5 hours and not to set a Personal Worst (my first marathon in 2003 was 4:58:42).



As the race wore on, I kept a pretty steady pace and felt great throughout. I was glad for the jacket several times throughout the race, as there were several areas where the wind picked up. I feel like the extra long runs were very helpful for me (I ran 20 miles 3 times during my training). There was never a point in the race where I felt like I couldn't or didn't want to go on. In fact, I picked up the pace during some of my last miles. I only wish that I had been able to lose more of the weight that I've been carrying around for the past few months. Next time.

My official finish time was 4:57:05, exactly what I expected (11:20/mile pace).


The race course was extremely flat, just as they advertised. The support on the course was fantastic for an inaugural marathon. There was even an Elvis. My only complaint about the support was the wastefulness. Many of the water stops were handing out full bottles of water, the 20 oz size. We would take a bottle, take a few sips, then toss it down. It was a real waste of all that plastic.



And, the chips weren't an issue. The timing chips were commemorative for the first year, so we got to keep them. So, I was the one who had to deal with unhooking that thing from my laces.



Barbie ran the Half, she took it easy since she is running Boston next Monday. She ran it in 1:52:44. She had planned a 2 hour race on the way up. I predicted 1:52. Am I a good race predictor or what?
Angie signed up late, so the 5K was the only race available for her. She ran it in 29:03.



I'm feeling great today, a little sore but much better than after my previous marathons. I think I will be ready to run by Tuesday or Wednesday. My next race is in Boston next Sunday morning, the inaugural B.A.A. 5K.



I'm already plotting my next marathon. I'm hoping I can take off at least 20 pounds this spring and summer and post a PR at Memphis in December.

On the Road Again...

I do have some awesome photos of me and the kids with various movie stars, but I don't want to get my camera out right now so they will have to wait. We happened upon a wax museum whilst in the Ozarks over Spring Break and hilarity ensued. Of course, the pictures don't do any of it justice but all the same...

I'm leaving tomorrow morning for Champaign-Urbana for the Illinois Marathon. The race is on Saturday morning! Less than 2 days away! I have been having a lot of crazy marathon dreams. My last marathon was in 2006, so I guess I'm a bit more nervous than I thought I would be. Here are some of my random dreams:

- My friends and I oversleep, I show up at the race start in my flip-flops and pajamas. I don't have time to go back for my running shoes.

- I can not get any pasta the night before and wind up sharing a Lean Cuisine with another friend (who is not even going to be there, by the way).

- I show up at the race ready to run, and everybody else is all decked out in dresses and full make-up.

- My friends and I oversleep and show up for the race on time but can't seem to get to the starting line. By the time we get to the starting line, the race has already started and we are about an hour late. Oh, by the way, this dream takes place in St Louis for some strange reason- I guess because I'm more familiar with St Louis.

Hopefully, there will be no drama and we will arrive at the race without a hitch. I'm glad all of my crazy dreams have to do with getting to the race on time and not the race itself. The last thing I need to be doing right now is second guessing my training.

I probably won't post again until after the race, so wish me luck!

Here are some pictures from last weekend's 10K race...

3rd place in age group!

We're all winners:

Southern IL 10K

Just a quick recap of yesterday's 10K race... I'm getting ready to head down to the Ozarks for a couple of days, the kids are on Spring Break so I'm off work all week.

I dreaded this run for some reason. It was 48 degrees at the start and sunny with a slight breeze off the lake- perfect weather for a run. I was going to take it slow and run with Angie. When the race started, I was feeling pretty good, so Angie told me to go on just before the one mile mark. I caught up with Carol quickly and ran alongside her for the next 3 miles or so. I kept feeling myself pulling back to stay with her.

At around the 4 mile mark, I noticed that I kept trying to carry on a conversation and Carol kept giving me one syllable responses. I realized that she was struggling, so I went on ahead at that point. I was feeling really good. I hoped that I could break the one hour mark. At the 5 mile mark, I realized that it was going to be close. My 6th mile was a 9:09 min/mile according to Garmin. Clearly, I could have easily run harder the first few miles. I finished in 1:00:13. Fourteen seconds short! Bleh!

I won third place in my age group. Yay!
Of course, Barbie took pictures as usual... I'll post them later this week.